


no choice

by callieincali



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Brakebills, Character Study, Mentions of drugs, read this if you think kady is hella under appreciated, the welters challenge, week one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 21:56:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11113662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callieincali/pseuds/callieincali
Summary: kady gets into brakebills





	no choice

**Author's Note:**

> i'm back for round two of welters week one. 
> 
> pretend the title is good, you know the drill.

The first oddity that clued Kady in on her surroundings being different was the tightly secured belt missing from the upper part of her arm.

Her entire body felt warm in a way that she wouldn't expect during November, and when her eyes adjusted to the obnoxious light filling her surroundings, she found a wooden bench underneath her, where the warehouse floor she blacked out on should have been. The bench rested on paved ground, leading to a suspiciously placed building surrounded by lush, green grass carrying no trace of the typical November flurries. And the farther she looked, the more grass she saw, as if someone had managed to drop her in the middle of some rich family’s expensive estate.

Even with the leftover heroin in her veins, the sight felt strange.

She was sweating in her downy jacket and hurriedly unzipped it, sitting up and stretching some of the kinks from her neck and back. The building looked oddly average in the midst of irregularities, and printed in barely visible white writing, just below the roof, were the words 'Brakebills University'. Her head pounded in protest as she stood up, holding the bench for a few moments longer as the blood rushed from her brain.

A smaller, much less noticeable sign perched pathetically in front of the entrance, labeled 'to exam' with a white arrow pointing at the door. With nothing but grass to follow for what seemed like miles, Kady assumed that the building was her only option to go to.

The sign appeared again inside, pointing to a brown door with a gold doorknob; 'exam' written neatly on a piece of paper taped to it.

All Kady could think was, this is one crazy trip.

Nonetheless, she opened the door and gaped at the hoard of students sitting in rows at tables, with a few stragglers just making their way inside. Kady must have been one of those stragglers.

A man standing at the front of the room in a stiff suit spoke loudly enough for all the students to hear, telling them to find a seat and sit.

Her anxiety mixed with seventeen years of neglect told Kady to run right back out of the doors, but the security guards standing beside each exit persuaded her to take a seat. She wasn't in any position to get in trouble with the law. So, she sat.

Her entire body itched with uneasiness, her stomach one wrong move away from emptying itself on top of whatever booklet was resting on the table in front of her.

The older man gave a short speech that felt far too formal and mysterious. The twisting of her stomach strengthened with each vague explanation he was trying to give. He was to be addressed as Dean Fogg. No time for answers. And she had to finish the exam on the table.

Exam, that made sense. She did follow a 'to exam' sign, after all.

With one flip of an obnoxiously-sized hourglass, the entire room filled with the sound of turning pages and pencil scribblings.

Kady opened her test cautiously, as if a stapled stack of papers could somehow cause her harm. The first page was filled with numbers and symbols that she didn't have the desire to try and understand, and before she could get far, the question faded, replacing itself with an entirely new one. Kady blinked a few times, severely confused by the strange paper as she stared at it. She decided to coin it as an uncharacteristic hallucination, just as the process repeated itself on the page.

The next explanation that came to her was that the questions were timed and if she didn't answer them quick enough, they faded away. So, stopping herself from making the same mistake three times, she skimmed over the question and worked out an answer that seemed reasonable enough.

Magic is real— Kady already knew that— and the exam reeked of something unordinary.

She answered the remainder of the questions to the best of her ability, somehow angry at herself for not studying for a test she didn't know she would be taking. When the last grains of sand fell to the lower half of the hourglass, Kady's exam booklet fell permanently blank, along with everyone else's around her.

Dean Fogg called out again in his deep, intimidating voice for all of the participants to turn in their tests at the front of the room. Kady followed the line of eager faces, frequently glancing at every exit with the hopes that one would be unguarded and easy to slip out of. Her chance to run never came.

When her turn came to hand in the blank booklet, a woman slid her a slip of paper with a few numbers on it, saying that Kady would need to report to that room. The hallways were exceptionally confusing, especially when her brain still felt as if it hadn't fully switched on, but eventually Kady found her room and opened the door, wary about what she would see behind it.

Dean Fogg sat in a desk at the center of the room, his hands folded on top of a stack of papers.

"Kady, sit please." He addressed her, somehow knowing her name without having to ask. She nodded and took a seat, even as every nerve in her body blared with caution. It was silent for what felt like hours before Fogg cleared his throat and began speaking.

"Magic is real. We have reason to believe you possess the ability to use it." Kady rolled her eyes at the statement, wishing she hadn't been correct in her suspicions about the university. She failed at holding back a groan at the idea that magic had somehow found its way to her, despite her best efforts to keep it out.

"Yeah, no shit." Dean Fogg seemed slightly taken aback by her bluntness, but hid it well. She didn't feel the need to apologize for it.

"How long have you been using magic?" He asked, sighing as he spoke, as if speaking to her was a chore for him. As if her previous knowledge in magic was too problematic for the early hours of the morning.

"I don't know, since I was ten?" Kady's heart was racing at the mention of her past— at the mention of the magic she had spent a greater part of her life trying to forget. Anger was consuming her before she had a chance to stop it. "Is this about magic?" Fogg opened his mouth to answer, but Kady quickly cut him off. "If it is, I don't want whatever you're offering." He remained silent for a while, like he was testing whether or not Kady had something else to say. When she didn't continue, he started again.

"At Brakebills, our goal is to foster your magical aptitude in a way that leaves you in a place better than— where we found you." The last part of the explanation held a hint of disgust and when Kady realized what he was referring to, her heart rate only quickened. It was starting to finally make sense. And if they 'found' here, what all did they know?

"So what? This is some sort of magic half-way house?" She scoffed, hoping the contempt would hide the fear she was truly feeling. Dean Fogg didn't seem to enjoy the humor.

"This is a school for magic. Drugs are not tolerated here." He rephrased, purposely emphasizing the part about drugs. Kady scoffed again, because how else was she supposed to respond to a situation that secretly scared the shit out of her?

She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and squinted her eyes in a way that she hoped looked intimidating. "And if I don't stay, you arrest me, right?" The question was accusing, but Fogg remained indifferent to her claims.

"If you choose to leave, we will ensure that you remember none of this and that you wake up inside the rooms of a rehabilitation facility with a signed patient form." His tone lost its initial composure, allowing some of the anger beneath it to show through. When the weight of the explanation became clear to Kady she leaned back against the chair, squeezing her eyes shut as she tried to sort out the mess of thoughts in her mind.

"We are here to help, whether that be through this school or not."

She wanted him to shut the hell up, but her thoughts were too clouded with emotion to cast a spell.

Magic or detox. Those were her choices. She could either go back to rehab or trade her heroin addiction for the same thing that sent her mother spiraling into similar addictive patterns— the same thing that forced her own mom to sell her to some hedge witch because she couldn't pay her debts.

"What's option number three?" Kady mumbled from behind the hands scrubbing at her tired eyes. Again, Fogg didn't appreciate her humor and ignored the question completely.

"I'll need you answer now."

"I— I guess I'll stay here." She decided, her head already filled with a thousand ways for her to get out of the situation. She could probably run away from the school. And being a magician on the run didn't sound much different than being a street kid on the run-- except it did, because magic was far scarier than a couple cops with guns. Whatever, she'd work out the kinks later.

She rubbed the back of her neck with her hand, hoping it would break up some of the stiffness (and distract her from the possibly disastrous decision she had just made).

"I'll have a nurse escort you to the infirmary. Classes start in a week. You should be detoxed by then." Kady hung her head low in defeat. She would have cried but numbness easily swallowed those tears, leaving only fury in its wake. She could feel magic pooling in her hands, swelling in her fingertips until the electricity was almost too much to contain. She needed to punch something— or someone— but settled on clenching her fists into tight balls instead, flinching at the heat radiating from the center.

A plan to escape was already formulating in her head; she would detox, and as soon as they cleared her for classes she'd make a run for it. A week seemed like a long enough space of time for her to get off of Dean Fogg's 'watch list'

The details of the plan only strengthened as the days passed in the infirmary, until it was virtually foolproof.

And she would have actually executed that plan after her detox, if it hadn't been for a boy named Penny— who was in the infirmary for the same reason as her— who convinced her to stay.

**Author's Note:**

> look everyone knows i'm wickoff biased but i thought adding penny in there was so damn cute. 
> 
> who knew i could write a fic without julila.
> 
> anyway, i'm @bestbltches on twitter and @magicianstextposts on tumblr if you wanna yell with me!
> 
> let me know what you think!


End file.
